Network-Wide Mixed-Rail Traffic Scheduler: Challenges and Implementation Aspects

EasyChair Preprint 10898

Abstract

In 2020, Indian Railways took up a de novo timetabling exercise for the Golden Quadrilateral and Diagonals (GQD) connecting Mumbai-Delhi-Kolkata-Chennai, involving about 1700 trains on a weekly basis over a network of 9,099 km. Based on significant participation in this activity, this paper elaborates on the challenges faced in a network-wide simulation and scheduling of trains across a large network. The methods to address these challenges and the software implementation aspects are also described. A network-wide mixed-rail traffic simulator was used successfully to construct a daily timetable for the GQD. The two primary goals of the Zero Based Timetabling (ZBTT) project were to generate train schedules that were: (a) feasible (in terms of kinematic constraints on both trains running and block-section, running lines) and (b) conflict-free (due to multiple trains having to share resources and the need to ensure time-durations of resource usage are different, subject to safety constraints), for a proposed set of departure timings and halt patterns of all the services that were planned on the GQD.

Keyphrases: Mixed-rail traffic, Scheduler, Simulator, graph-theoretic, scalable

@booklet{EasyChair:10898,
  author    = {Sidhartha I Kumar and Karim Shahbaz and Mitul Tyagi and Samay P. Singh and Satwik V. Ramisetty and Sudarshan Pulapadi and Madhu N. Belur and Narayan Rangaraj and Merajus Salekin and Raja Gopalakrishnan},
  title     = {Network-Wide Mixed-Rail Traffic Scheduler: Challenges and Implementation Aspects},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 10898},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2023}}